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lift kit???

I got TJM to do a 2inch lift for me and Im not real happy as it looks like the rear has been lifted 4 inches and the front stayed standard.But as the front end is torsion bar they reckon they cant get too much lift out of them . So are there any suspension experts out there that might advise, my best bet to level the car as it looks pretty stupid .Dont think the pic really shows it.P4010036.jpgP4010037.jpgP4010038.jpg

Re: lift kit???

Mate, there is only so much that can be done to the front end as you'd have to lower the dif to set reduce the half shaft angles and there's bound to be a cross member under the diff that will get in the way. There has been some images of a Ranger in Thailand that has had a 4 inch body lift, but i dounbt you could do that here due to the airbags and the need to get teh vehicle re-certified by an Engineer.

Have you been back to TJM to ask if there's anymore they can do to the front end? They'd know how close they are to the limit I reckon...

Re: lift kit???

Very nice mate, very nice. How did you go with your wheel alignment issue? Mines on the cards later this year to have some money spent on her and one thing was a lift as well as bull bar and wheels etc. I'm just a little concerned about future issues after giving her a lift especially with tyre wear if I can't get the alignment done right.

Re: lift kit???

has anyone seen a ranger with a genuine 5" lift,now available from superior engineering for 3,600 bucks,fit some 33"s under that sucker,love it,unfortunately in s.a 2"inches is all were allowed and thats alot of coin,still want it though.

Re: lift kit???

Originally Posted by STRANGER69

has anyone seen a ranger with a genuine 5" lift,now available from superior engineering for 3,600 bucks,fit some 33"s under that sucker,love it,unfortunately in s.a 2"inches is all were allowed and thats alot of coin,still want it though.

Re: lift kit???

Umm , I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but ; the factory ' builds in ' a thing called ' roll understeer ' .
It is on the rear end and , it ensures that ( well , it tries to ) the rear does not ' step out ' or to use the colloquialism , get taily when cornering enthusiastically in the wet weather .
The place to see this is at a round a bout , watch the ute or 4by in question carefully as it is driven thru at speed .
Lets assume we are talking right hand drive vehicle and , the poky little r-a-b's as found in western suburbia ( less than 150 feet in diameter ) .

The 4by will have to turn left then right then left , in order to go ' straight thru ' the chicane nay r-a-b .
lift kit makes these steer characteristics very easy to see as it grossly accentuates the body roll and its effects upon the vehicle .
Cut a long story short , as the body rolls to the right the diff is skewed to the left ( yes the diff turns in relation to the body )
This action will in most cases counteract the roll such that the ute will ( to the driver ) feel like it does not want to turn into the corner and in fact is running wide so much that if I do not wind in more steering I feel that it will run off the road !!!
Classic roll understeer that !
Guys ,
Icould bang on about steer characteristics until you turn old and grey !
I won't , though .
I am a fan of re-arching the springs to get ground clearance !
I am a fan of living to see what tomorrow brings !
I am a fan of extending the rear spring hangers to get the ride height correct after SLIGHT re-arching of the springs .
With the bad roll things banished , the rear end WILL step out when unloaded on slippery roads ; I carry a few cement bags worth of ballast and just enjoy driving .

The whole point is raise the car by all means , just do not become a victim of it , make sure that on a level road the height of the front spring pivot point is the same as on the rear and there will not be ( if you included the ballast when it is needed ) any nasty surprises .

At the front end , make sure there is enough bump stop clearance to cope with normal driving , when the suspension hits the stops , there is NO more that it can do to help you , At that point the tyre becomes the only available ' suspension ' ,and it is completely undamped .
When the car or whatever is on its bump stops the tyre is the suspension and it very , very quickly becomes overloaded to the point that there is no more grip from it . Effectively , the car will have a ' mind of its own ' because only the tyre/s with the higher grip will keep the car on the road and going in the desired direction ..
Cheers
ark

The process is always simple ,the Devil is in the Dynamics just ask Mr Kelvin...

Re: lift kit???

Re: lift kit???

Originally Posted by Ranger user

Umm , I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but ; the factory ' builds in ' a thing called ' roll understeer ' .
It is on the rear end and , it ensures that ( well , it tries to ) the rear does not ' step out ' or to use the colloquialism , get taily when cornering enthusiastically in the wet weather .
The place to see this is at a round a bout , watch the ute or 4by in question carefully as it is driven thru at speed .
Lets assume we are talking right hand drive vehicle and , the poky little r-a-b's as found in western suburbia ( less than 150 feet in diameter ) .

The 4by will have to turn left then right then left , in order to go ' straight thru ' the chicane nay r-a-b .
lift kit makes these steer characteristics very easy to see as it grossly accentuates the body roll and its effects upon the vehicle .
Cut a long story short , as the body rolls to the right the diff is skewed to the left ( yes the diff turns in relation to the body )
This action will in most cases counteract the roll such that the ute will ( to the driver ) feel like it does not want to turn into the corner and in fact is running wide so much that if I do not wind in more steering I feel that it will run off the road !!!
Classic roll understeer that !
Guys ,
Icould bang on about steer characteristics until you turn old and grey !
I won't , though .
I am a fan of re-arching the springs to get ground clearance !
I am a fan of living to see what tomorrow brings !
I am a fan of extending the rear spring hangers to get the ride height correct after SLIGHT re-arching of the springs .
With the bad roll things banished , the rear end WILL step out when unloaded on slippery roads ; I carry a few cement bags worth of ballast and just enjoy driving .

The whole point is raise the car by all means , just do not become a victim of it , make sure that on a level road the height of the front spring pivot point is the same as on the rear and there will not be ( if you included the ballast when it is needed ) any nasty surprises .

At the front end , make sure there is enough bump stop clearance to cope with normal driving , when the suspension hits the stops , there is NO more that it can do to help you , At that point the tyre becomes the only available ' suspension ' ,and it is completely undamped .
When the car or whatever is on its bump stops the tyre is the suspension and it very , very quickly becomes overloaded to the point that there is no more grip from it . Effectively , the car will have a ' mind of its own ' because only the tyre/s with the higher grip will keep the car on the road and going in the desired direction ..
Cheers
ark

Re: lift kit???

Originally Posted by Redwight

Bigger tyres and more air, then phaph about wid the sprinks. DUH.

In the old days , the old school guys thought that that was all there is to do . They would just accept that the poor driving characteristics , that
came with those sort of mods , was what you get so you had to shut up and live with it .
We can , however , have a reasonable compromise that makes the things not dangerous on road .
Not a lot of work in doing it , just means that someone has to look carefully at the interplay between the various suspension components ,
and make suitable changes .

Last edited by Ranger user; 15-01-2012 at 04:53 PM.

The process is always simple ,the Devil is in the Dynamics just ask Mr Kelvin...

Re: lift kit???

Just had my lift done, Rockcrawler springs and torsions, Rancho 9000s all round.

Fairly happy, much better ride . . . got 40mm rear, 25mm front, wind torsions up any more and it's too close to top bump, and limited in upward suspension movement.
I was after better ride and carry capacity on trips, got both.

Re: lift kit???

Looks good and welcome to the ford forums Les,i have the ranchos all round after starting off with EFS the front left shocker blue out and the rear right snaped off at the bottom weld,ranchos have so far survived all off the same treatment:-)I will say though the front end is a little more wishy washy no matter what setting they are on.Can i ask what roof rack have you got fitted and hows the ironman awning treat you?Cheers.

Re: lift kit???

Thanks, very happy with the truck in most ways now.
I didn't find the OE shocks too bad, but wanted to get something to match new springs / torsions etc.

WIth the 9000s, I found that the 5/5 (front / rear) that was set on install was about same as original shocks.
I dropped it to 2/3 and it was a huge difference, way too soft.

Bumped them up to 6/7 now and pretty happy with that.
Much better ride, cornering, handled huge rutted sand hills nicely, and road corrugations hardly noticible.

Did you fit these to std suspension ?
Suspect you may have got a EFS lift ?
If so did you get new torsions or just wind the origianls up a bit ?

Have heard you can get an inch ok from originals, but the ride is not too good.
Better to go new torsions as well.

Just did Bushies with 4x4 Earth crew (42 cars, must have been 100 - 120 or so people) and it went excellent.
If you've been there you'll know just what a test the sand hills there can be on suspension.

Some bent bits on trucks, a couple blew shocks, and had a couple of tyres rolled off rims.
I went hard, just to test things out, happy now I can do Border Track (Easter) and other such trips in more comfort but won't push like that of course, got to get home.

Roof racks on the rear canopy are the Thule style ones by ARB, they have inside support bars to the tub sides, and the single cab one is Thule.
All levelled up nicely for the canopy and future alloy rack.

You have to be very careful with continuation of both awnings and racks that span over both the cab roof and the canopy.
The flex between the two is quite extreme off road and you can cause damage to awning / rack.

The idea is to make the fittings to the front rack a little loose and buffered with rubber so there's some room for movement there.

The Ironman awning is great.
Just watch the way any of these are assembled, the back plate and the front plate ali where it clamps the awning material and bag between them.
The rivets are along the bottom only and can give way, mine did, at least half off lucky I didn't lose it, and this was not caused when offroad, happened close to home.
I think the rivets just get weak from too much downward twisting, possibly fatigued from several fairly thorough long weekend trips.
See thread here . . . http://www.4x4earth.com.au/forum/cam...g-problem.html

As you'll see, I just put extra ones along the top half of the rail.
After this weekend at Bushies, it's still there so should be ok now I hope : )

Re: lift kit???

thanks for all that info les,good to see another crow-eater around the place:-)Had a look at the link,great tip,it would seem so bloody obvious to you and i that having the rivets higher would take out the twist,something i will definitely be doing when the time comes,ironman gear seems to be good value as far as i have heard.

Yeah i had the whole efs kit put in still got the leafs and torsion bars in,i have the front ranchos on 8 rears on 7,wouldnt want to wind up the stockies myself
bushies is at tintinara yes?i did the border track a while back its ok i guess used the chicken tracks around the bog holes,like you say have to get home.Cheers

Re: lift kit???

The awning, yeah very obvious when the back half is swinging away from the mounts.
Then the answer was clear, and why it let go with the lack of top support rivets.
Easy fix / prevention though, so first thing I'd do when fitting up such an awning.

Yep, Bushies is just 3 or 4 ks south of Coonalpyn and another half hour east towards the back of Ngarkat.
Great place, great bloke (Bushy), and will be going back there for sure with small group, that's for sure.

I first did the Border Track in mid Oct last year, and said to the missus that I wanted to do it again after the Ngarkat section reopens this April (Easter is perfect).
We did it right down to just 15km north of Dukes Hwy, left the BT at -36.211723,140.966315, came out to bitumen at -36.212524,140.997714.

This included the part of the track marked on the map as "Very narrow section of track'.
Yeah, it WAS.
Some nice pinstriping on my truck with just 3500ks on the clock . . . ah well, that's what I bought it for.

It was very dry when we did it Oct, still went around most of the big rutted trenches, diffs would have hung up on most of them.
Did get over all but the bigest dune hill, got the second track . . . was very soft, truck was bouncing all over the place !

This time we are heading east from Red Bluff and going through Big Desert region to Wyperfeld.
Doing part of the Murrayville Track, Milmed Rock Track, various tracks across east and then north up to Snow Drift, then Gunners Track out to Underbool before the drive home Easter Monday.
575km bitumen, 345km tracks.